The U.S. Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management.

Stevan Pearce, a former Nevada congressman, was approved by a 46-43 vote along party lines on Monday evening, May 18. Colorado’s two Democratic senators cast “no” votes, citing Pearce’s refusal to disavow his past statements advocating for the sale of public lands. The “en bloc” vote also included dozens of other positions.

“Americans should care who leads the BLM and oversees 245 million acres of public land,” Sen. John Hickenlooper said in a statement. “We can’t have someone who wants to sell them running the agency.”

When he was in Congress in 2016, Pearce co-sponsored a bill that would have authorized the U.S. Department of Interior, which houses the Bureau of Land Management, to auction off public lands. In 2012, he also penned a letter to then-U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, noting that the federal government owns 650 million acres of land and stating that “most of it we do not even need.”

A majority of the nation’s public lands are concentrated in the West. In Colorado, more than 8 million acres, or about 12.5% of the state, is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, according to the federal agency’s website.

Sen. Michael Bennet in a statement said Pearce’s appointment as Bureau of Land Management director is “an insult to all Coloradans, and is deeply troubling for everyone who values our public lands.”

Pearce’s confirmation comes as the Trump administration has reduced the size of public land management agencies, cutting thousands of employees, through mass layoffs and early-retirement programs.

Last year, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, also introduced an amendment into Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that would have allowed the federal government to sell millions of acres of public land. The amendment faced fierce opposition, including in Colorado, and failed to make it into the final version of the bill.

During his nomination hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in February, Pearce did not provide a direct response when Hickenlooper pressed him on his “personal opinion” about whether public land sales are a good idea.

Eagle County Commissioner Tom Boyd in a statement on Pearce’s confirmation noted that his family has been hunting on Colorado’s public lands for generations.

“Will my sons have to pay a billionaire to access those same lands in the future, all because the federal government sold it so they could do a one-time pay off of a fraction of the deficit?” Boyd asked.

While Colorado politicians from the local to the federal level have expressed concern about Pearce’s confirmation, the oil and gas industry has celebrated his appointment to lead the Bureau of Land Management.

Pearce, who once ran an oilfield services company, said during his nomination hearing that he supports Trump’s vision of “energy dominance” and expanding mining and critical mineral development.

Melissa Simpson, the president of the Western Energy Alliance, a trade group of independent oil and natural gas companies, said in a statement that Pearce’s tenure in Congress and his professional experience make him the right person for the job.

“Steve Pearce is exactly the kind of experienced, principled leader we need at the helm of the BLM,” Simpson said. “He’s a westerner and comes from a state that’s nearly 20% BLM land, so he understands the Bureau’s mission.”

Leaders across the West, including the Colorado mountains, voiced concern about Pearce’s appointment to the helm of the Bureau of Land Management.

Anna Peterson, the executive director of The Mountain Pact, a coalition of local elected officials from more than 100 Western mountain communities, in a statement said Pearce’s confirmation “will be a disaster for our communities.”

“Pearce is a dangerous climate denier and a key player in the anti-public lands movement who spent his entire career in Congress boosting corporate polluters and defending oil and gas interests while fighting tooth and nail to sell off our public lands to the highest bidder,” Peterson said.

Routt County Commissioner Sonja Macys noted that the Bureau of Land Management operates under what is known as the “multiple-use mandate,” which directs agencies to manage public lands for overlapping uses, such as outdoor recreation, livestock grazing, energy extraction and wildlife protection. The Trump administration earlier this month ended a Biden-era rule that put conservation on equal footing with other uses.

“No single interest is supposed to outweigh the others. These lands belong to everyone,” Macys said in a statement. “Steve Pearce, who has a record of supporting public land privatization, poses a direct threat to that balance.… For Routt County, protecting the multiple-use mandate isn’t theoretical, it’s about safeguarding jobs, access and the outdoor heritage that sustains our community.”

Chaffee County Commissioner Gina Lucrezi in a statement called Pearce’s confirmation, “a direct threat to the land, wildlife and our heritage.”

Hickenlooper noted that there is widespread support for public lands across the political spectrum.

One poll of Western voters published by Colorado College earlier this year found that 86% of respondents deemed cuts to public lands a serious problem, including 76% of Republicans, and about three-quarters also opposed selling public lands for housing or oil, gas and mining development.

“Our politics feel poisonous, public lands are an antidote,” Hickenlooper said. “Yet, the Trump administration is determined to hand more of them over to private interests and the highest bidder.”